


Worlds Adjacent

by giantsequoia



Series: a Spirit of Barbs [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giantsequoia/pseuds/giantsequoia
Summary: Sequel to "Take It Out On Me", set approximately 20 years later.Hawke, now going by the name Logan, falls through the cosmos due to an unforeseeable celestial event damaging the Crossroads while he is travelling between eluvians. He ends up in the strange universe of E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, except Thedas is still a planet there, Kirkwall is a Blade-Runner-esque futuristic cyperbunk city, and parallel versions of Hawke's friends and family from Thedas also exist there.Much weirdness will ensue. Can Hawke survive this strange, hostile universe? Can he deal with people who resemble his friends in appearance and personality, but grew up in a totally different world? Can he find his way home? We'll see....
Relationships: Anders/Male Hawke
Series: a Spirit of Barbs [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/981306
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. the Scion Unwilling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArcherAnders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcherAnders/gifts).



> Sequel to "Take It Out On Me", set approximately 20 years later.  
> This story sort-of agrees with canon up to the end of DAI: Trespasser, with the exception of divergences described in TIOOM as well as parts of the book Asunder: specifically the bit during which Wynne was still alive and did the exact same thing she did in my fic I'd written years before the book was published, that is, die so her spirit companion could save someone else's life.  
> Post-Trespasser, this story assumes some kind of war has happened over the Fade that Solas lost; the status quo of the Veil separating the dreaming (magic) and waking worlds is maintained, and the Crossroads and many eluvians are still accessible and usable.  
> I plan to ignore any canon established by DA4 and related media because I want to write this story now, and I have no idea how the cosmic landscape of the DA universe will change in that game (which is presently unreleased).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gathering for a party with his loved ones, Hawke takes what he intends to be a quick trip through an eluvian to retrieve an item from his house in Kirkwall. Cosmic disaster strikes before he can return to his world, and he plummets into an alien abyss.

_Bloomingtide, 9:54 Dragon_

The scent of mountain flowers and spring drifted on the cool breeze into Skyhold’s Great Hall. Relaxing, upbeat music filled the former throne room, drifting above the murmur of conversation. Various friends and allies of the old Inquisition had gathered here to celebrate past victories, toast fallen friends, and enjoy some time with those that remained.

Among those attending the reunion was Logan Hawke: six foot four and two hundred and thirty-eight pounds of green-eyed, copper-skinned muscle. His dark red hair and beard had faded to auburn over the years, and were now sprinkled with grey.

Once he had been known as Michael Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall. Sometimes he still answered to that name – specifically, when his loved ones and closest friends used it by accident. But even that hadn’t happened for years.

After the Inquisition had gone underground in the service of Divine Victoria, Hawke’s infamy had made his continued association with them problematic at times. Spreading the story that he’d died in the Fade, sacrificing himself so that the Inquisitor could escape the Nightmare, and going by his middle name instead had been the brainchild of one Josephine Montilyet, the Inquisition’s ambassador and public-relations expert.

Known as Logan Hawke from then on, the one-time Champion and his partners-until-death – the mage revolutionary Anders and his spirit companion Justice – had continued to work with the Inquisition throughout their quest to take on the next major threat to the world: the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel.

Although that quest had since succeeded (and the ramifications were still being felt across the world), Logan Hawke had come to enjoy the anonymity that came with leaving the Champion’s mantle behind. His face wasn’t nearly so recognizable as his old name had been, and even after Solas’s defeat he’d been content to remain as he was: a stranger and a nobody to most. As Logan, he was beholden only to those he chose to be.

As many lives as Hawke had saved in the various wars and conflicts he’d been part of, as of now he was nobody’s hero except Anders’s. And that was how he liked it.

Another major benefit to leaving behind his old name was that he could pass off his physical mutations as the result of an alchemical accident, rather than as the permanent scars left on his body from when he’d been possessed by an eldritch horror two decades earlier.

The brown, diamond-hard claws on the ends of his fingers and the similarly nasty-looking hooks that protruded from his toes (which forced him at all times to either wear specially crafted boots or go barefoot) had never grown longer than they’d started as, but nor had they ever fallen off. Only once before had Hawke tried to have them removed, and the effort had been both agonizing and fruitless. No matter what happened to them, each and every claw fully grew back whenever he slept, up to about two-thirds the length of the digits they were attached to.

Although Hawke’s claws made his life difficult in many ways, they enriched it in others. In the end, although it had taken years, he’d accepted them as part of his body. He’d even come to enjoy the enhanced tactile-vibrational sense they endowed him with.

The other permanent relic from the same incident (the one that had knit his mind back together and saved him from oblivion after the horror’s defeat) had been quiet within Hawke for a long time. That was also how he liked it.

Not far ahead of him, several former Circle mages and their families – including their children and three surviving Tranquil – sat at one of the great hall’s long tables. They were sharing a meal as they talked and listened to the musicians’ performance.

Anders was standing near their table, bent over speaking to one of the children. He had an orange tabby cat in his arms and a big grin on his face.

Hawke watched them for a while, basking in the glow of happiness that Anders radiated.

Also present around the room were various one-time (and some current) soldiers, spies, and diplomats of the Inquisition. Divine Victoria was there, undisguised but attending simply as Leliana. Among those in her conversational circle were Eingana Tabris (a Grey Warden and the still-living Hero of Ferelden), the head Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast of Nevarra, the raider captain Isabela (one of Hawke’s closest friends), Guard-Captain of Kirkwall Aveline Vallen, and Josephine, the diplomat who’d managed to “kill” Michael Hawke.

Nearby, two Dalish mages and two dwarven women – Merrill, Velanna, Lace Harding, and Dagna – were engaged in an animated discussion about one of the mosaics on the wall. A young brown-skinned human boy stood amidst them, listening to them talk with every sign of fascination.

Up at the head table, the qunari mage and former Inquisitor Saadeh Adaar sat between his partner The Iron Bull and their friend (and Hawke’s) Varric Tethras, the Viscount of Kirkwall. With them were Magisters Dorian Pavus and Maevaris Tilani, visiting from Minrathous. Bull’s lieutenant Krem had brought the Chargers, his mercenary company, although only Krem himself was seated at the head table.

Saadeh was nodding along as he listened to something Maevaris was saying, cutting the meat on his plate with the help of his clockwork-and-magic prosthetic arm – a project of Dagna’s from some years back that had returned to Saadeh much of his lost arm’s functionality.

There were a few others that Hawke knew amongst the gathering’s attendees. Aveline’s husband Donnic was around here somewhere, and he’d spotted Zevran Arainai conducting a surreptitious discussion with Fenris in a shadowy corner. He’d caught their eyes and nodded a greeting, then ignored them, maintaining a respectful disinterest in their private business.

Now and then he’d also caught sight of a fair-skinned humanoid apparition hanging around the people visiting the castle, always smiling and sometimes laughing – but he only remembered it once, and something about the look in the young man’s eyes had convinced Hawke that he was not and never would be a threat.

As he seemed to be one of the last to arrive, Hawke looked around for somewhere to sit. Before he could find a suitable spot, Anders saw him. The mage excused himself from his conversation and hurried over to Hawke, smiling.

“There you are, love!” Anders said as he reached him. “Where have you been?”

Hawke took him by the forearms and kissed him before answering.

“Out for a run with Reaver,” he said. “There’s some gorgeous scenery around here that I could never really appreciate before, what with the various wars on. The paths outside the castle aren’t so great for... well, _running_ , though. Mainly cliffsides – some of them a bit unstable, you know.”

“That was rather silly of you, love,” Anders said. “I’m glad neither of you tripped and fell into a bloody chasm.”

“We’re not scared of chasms,” said Hawke. “Reaver would just growl and I’d give it a mean look, and it would spit us back out again.”

Anders nodded with every appearance of taking this completely seriously.

“But... yeah, we’ll probably stick to the battlements next time,” Hawke conceded.

“Where did Reaver end up?” Anders asked. “I certainly hope your dog isn’t going to come in here tracking mud all over Saadeh’s nice carpets.”

“Fuck off,” Hawke scoffed. “Reaver’s a war hero, he can track mud wherever he wants. Saadeh will back me up on this. Anyway, he’s still out chasing nugs. He’ll be back in half an hour.”

Hawke reached out to rub behind the ears (carefully, because of his claws) of Pounce III, the cat who was now loafing on Anders’s shoulder.

“Not like this little punk, who sleeps all day and whines if he doesn’t get a treat with every meal,” Hawke went on. “Teach your cat to hunt before you start complaining about my dog’s personal hygiene, Anders.”

Anders laughed as Pounce purred and rubbed his head against Hawke’s palm. “ _You’re_ the one who started giving him treats, Logan,” he said “And I told you what would happen.”

Hawke was saved from answering by the arrival of Varric, who at some point had noticed them, gotten up, and made his way over.

“Finally,” he said, appearing at their sides. “Hawke, I’m glad you’re here. I have something very important to tell you.”

“Oh?” said Hawke. “What’s that?”

“Do you remember,” Varric said, eyes showing signs of the smile he was hiding, “way back in like... 9:30-something, when you’d been possessed for a few months but hadn’t really _lost_ it yet, and Eingana had just arrived at the mansion and scared us all with talk of demons?”

Both Anders and Hawke frowned at him.

“Sure,” Hawke said.

“Do you remember what I said then?”

“It was twenty years ago, Varric,” Hawke complained. “What do you want from me?”

“I think I know what he’s getting at,” Anders said, smiling. “Was it the thing about him and Eingana both being there and setting a record for most badass under one roof?”

“That’s it exactly,” Varric said, and he actually shook his fists in excitement.

Hawke looked between them, not getting it.

“Oh, come on,” Varric said, gesturing around grandly. “Isn’t it obvious? The record’s now been broken!”

“Oh.” Hawke’s eyebrows rose as he nodded consideringly. He looked around, noting the presence of people like Eingana and Saadeh in a new way. “Huh. I think you’re right, Varric.”

“This is the safest I’ve felt in years,” Varric said comfortably as he led Anders and Hawke towards the head table. “With _this_ much badass under one roof, I don’t think there’s a force in this world or any other that could take this place. Tonight I may just decide to finally do my ancestors proud, overindulge in drink, and pass out under a table.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Hawke warned him. “Great Bear’s balls, Varric, do you _want_ something bad to happen?”

Varric rolled his eyes. “You worry too much. That kind of thing only happens in stories... mostly.”

“Speaking of stories,” said Anders. “I’ve been looking forward all week to seeing Saadeh’s reaction to your new anthology, Varric. When are you going to show it to him?”

“As a matter of fact-” Varric said as Hawke suddenly stopped walking and said “Shit.”

Anders and Varric stopped a moment later, looking back at him.

“-Hawke said he’d bring it tonight,” Varric finished, his voice becoming tinged with exasperation. “Come on, big guy, don’t tell me you-?”

“Left the book in my estate in Kirkwall?” Hawke completed for him. “Yeah. Sorry, Varric.”

Anders groaned and facepalmed. “You went there specifically to _get_ it, among other things,” he said. “What were you even doing over there for two hours? Polishing your sword?”

Hawke crossed his arms and said evenly, “You know damn well you polish my sword often enough that _I_ don’t need to, ever.”

Anders’s face reddened. “I-oh. Logan, obviously that’s not what I-”

Smirking, Hawke held up a hand to forestall further comment and also to assuage Varric’s looked of pained inconvenience.

“Relax,” he said. “It’s a ten-minute walk through the Crossroads to Kirkwall. I’ll just nip back over and get it. Be here again before you know it.”

Anders grimaced. “But you just arrived. I haven’t seen you all day!”

“Blondie, please,” Varric said. “It’s ten minutes there and back. Twenty minutes, say half an hour to be safe, and you’ll be content in your man’s strong, strong arms. You said yourself you’ve been looking forward to Saadeh’s reaction to the anthology – if we don’t show it to him tonight, he’s just going to go get his own copy in Val Royeaux next week.”

Anders sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, but it was clear he’d given in.

“Oh, fine,” he said. “I _am_ looking forward to that little squeal Saadeh’s going to make when he sees you’ve given him the _Tale of the Champion_ treatment. I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Right?!” said Varric. “I shit you not, I almost hired an Orlesian speed-painter to be here when I give it to him, just to get a record of his expression in that moment preserved for all time.”

“Anyway,” Hawke said pointedly.

Varric nodded to him. “Thanks, Hawke. I appreciate you running back to Kirkwall to get the book.”

“I _was_ the one who left it there,” Hawke reminded him.

“Still.” Varric clapped him on the hip, since that was about where he could easily reach. “See you in a little while, old buddy. I’ll save some mutton for you.”

“Do that,” Hawke said.

Varric departed, heading back for the table.

Anders took Hawke’s hands as he unfolded his arms, sliding his fingers in around the claws with the ease of years of practice.

“Hurry back, love,” he said, leaning in close to kiss Hawke’s cheek.

Hawke reached up, took Anders’s face in his hands, and gave him a deep, long kiss. The tips of his claws traced ever-so-lightly across his lover’s face, never inflicting a scratch despite their razor-sharpness.

“I promise,” he said. “In the meantime, sit down and have some food. Enjoy a little bit of the peace and freedom we’ve fought so hard for. I’ll be back in twenty-one minutes.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Anders said.

He leaned in close and added in a whisper in Hawke’s ear, “Tonight I want you to fuck me out on those battlements.”

Hawke bit his lip as lust immediately pulsed through him, sending blood surging into his cock. He tugged Anders closer with one arm around his shoulders and planted one last kiss on his ear, this time adding a slight nip with his teeth.

“Count on it,” he said. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Their hands and fingers were the last parts to let go of one another.

Hawke left the great hall at a jog, waving to Eingana along the way and pointing in the general direction of the side courtyard as she looked at him questioningly.

Most of the rest of the castle was empty, as nearly everyone inhabiting it at the moment was at the gathering. Hawke made his way down a few corridors, all of them lit by the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows.

In his mind, he’d already been to Kirkwall and returned with the book, sat through (and enjoyed) dinner with his friends, and was now up on those battlements, holding Anders up against one of the crenellations and fucking him with slow, loving thoroughness.

Almost at the side courtyard off of which was the entrance to the Crossroads, Hawke finally met one person who was not at the gathering: an adolescent elven girl, black of skin and hair, who was busy with a stick of charcoal and a bowl of ashes drawing and shading an intricate design of a tree on a blank section of wall.

The girl glanced at him as he trotted down the corridor toward her. “Hi, Hawke,” she said.

“Rawiya,” Hawke greeted her, recognizing her as one of the mages’ children. “Why aren’t you with the others?”

She shrugged. “I needed some time alone,” she said, looking down at her bowl as she rubbed her finger through the ashes. “I’ll go back soon.”

Hawke nodded understandingly.

“What are _you_ doing out here?” Rawiya asked as he drew level with her.

“I’m headed for the eluvian,” Hawke said. “I forgot something important in Kirkwall.”

She looked over at him as he passed. “Be careful,” she said.

Hawke paused near the entrance to the courtyard, eyeing her.

“Of what?” he asked.

“Just... watch your step,” Rawiya said, turning back to her drawing. “The Crossroads are in a strange mood today.”

Hawke looked at her for a few moments longer, frowning his confusion. He wanted to ask what she meant, but Rawiya was once again engrossed, shading in the branches of her tree with ash.

He left her to her art and headed out into the courtyard. From there, it was a few more moments before he entered the long chamber which contained Skyhold’s eluvian.

As he approached, Hawke activated the mirror with a clenched fist and a pull of power from his limited magical ability. Most of his magic came from his bloodline, and the majority of it was tied up in his reaver abilities. He’d managed to learn a few spells over years of being with Anders and fighting for the Inquisition, but opening an eluvian was about the most complicated magical thing he could do.

He entered the Crossroads, long accustomed at this point to the discomfort of the changing light and strange sounds with which it afflicted humans, and headed down a familiar path. He proceeded at a jog, his mind once again back at Skyhold with Anders.

About five minutes into his trip, Hawke was suddenly jolted out of his daydream as the path beneath him seemed to lurch forward. As he stumbled, the entire Crossroads briefly went white. There was light and sound but nothing else.

In his surprise Hawke lost track of his feet, unable to prevent his stumble from becoming a full-fledged face plant.

When his vision returned after a few moments, he was lying on his stomach on the packed-earth walkway, arms and hands folded uncomfortably beneath him from trying to break his fall. He blinked several times, trying to shake off the ache of hitting the path, clear the spots from his vision, and work out what had happened.

Disoriented as he was, the disharmonic experience of the Crossroads was a little more grating than usual. Hawke shoved himself up onto his knees, eyes closed with one hand massaging his temple and the other supporting his weight on the ground.

He was halfway through the motion of standing the rest of the way up when the whole path lurched once again, this time far more violently. Hawke grunted in surprise as he was thrown forward, colliding again with the hard ground and rolling over several times.

From behind him, a long, low rumble of thunder seemed to swell up, rapidly gaining intensity and then diminishing just as quickly as it seemed to race past him down the path. The sound wave was accompanied by a strong gust of wind that was quite unnatural to the still, artificial plane of the Crossroads.

“What the fuck is _happening_?!” Hawke groaned as he rolled onto his stomach. “‘Strange mood’, bullshit. This is _uphea_ -”

He never completed the sentence. As he was trying for the second time to push himself to his feet, the thunder and wind raced back along the path in the opposite direction – towards him. With the disturbance came a physics-defying wave that undulated the path itself, like a long piece of rope lying on the ground that had been whipped hard from one end.

Hawke stared ahead of him in horror as the path was yanked up into indeterminate heights. The distortion was coming right at him, and there was no chance at all of him getting out of the way in time. Even if he was back on his feet right now, he’d never outrun it. Whatever _it_ was.

He tried anyway, scrambling himself upright and turning to try to flee back towards the Skyhold eluvian.

Instead he found himself lifted off his feet and hurled forward, suffering the equivalent of a crushing, full-body blow as the pathway snapped underneath him.

And it didn’t just snap, or keep curling upward. It broke. It _shattered_.

Flailing, his whole body hurting, Hawke let out a single, lonely cry of fear and pain as he tumbled past the destroyed path into the abyss below the Crossroads.

He kept falling, and his cry died away as he gasped painfully for breath. It hurt to exhale, and inhaling was even worse. He felt like he’d been kicked hard and repeatedly in the chest, stomach, head, back, arms, and legs.

His body was rotating as he fell, and he could sometimes see a few twisting paths and floating islands somewhere ‘above’ him. He was still close enough to the Crossroads to recognize it. But where was he going to end up?

Fear became awful, gut-churning terror inside him as those few familiar paths dwindled into the pale haze above him.

Hawke looked around, urgently twisting as best he could to try to stabilize himself in mid-void. He did manage to stop turning end over end, at least.

When he looked up he could still see the Crossroads he’d been on, but no longer as differentiated paths and islands. All he could make out was a single long ribbon of a darker patch amidst the bright nothingness.

Hawke looked down and around him, desperately hoping that the internal topology of the Crossroads was circular or something, and that he might eventually fall back onto a path he knew. He could worry about surviving the fall once he was sure he’d get there.

But the Crossroads were not to be kind to him. He saw other dark ribbons, spreading out in several directions, but the one he’d fallen from was still visible above him. Below him he saw only emptiness.

If he really was going to travel in a circle, it might be a long, long time before he returned to his own path – and he might well be dead by then, or die on impact.

Taking shuddering breaths, tears welling in his eyes as he thought of Anders and Varric and all the others who would shortly be expecting him back at Skyhold, Hawke looked around for something – anything – to offer him hope.

His eyes followed the paths of the great dark ribbons, or roads or whatever they were. Several of them seemed to be broken, or at least discontinuous – like the one he’d left. All of them, however, seemed to point in a vaguely similar direction.

When he looked that way and concentrated hard for several moments, Hawke thought he could make out something else: another shape, also visible only as a darker patch amidst the lighter-toned void, but oriented vertically and much, _much_ larger.

The sheer size of it boggled his mind. Of course he had no sense of scale here in the Crossroads, but Hawke felt instinctively that the shape he was looking at could not effectively _be_ looked at – not in its entirely, certainly not by a being as small as he. It was a _thing_ on a scale far bigger than anything his mind was built to comprehend: something bigger than the sky, bigger than worlds.

Whatever it was, he could not afford to think about it. Other paths were becoming visible around and below him, but Hawke kept his eyes fixed on the increasingly distant, difficult-to-make-out route between Skyhold and Kirkwall.

It looked broken in multiple places, and it was so far out of his reach that it might as well have been one of Varric’s stories – but it was all he had to focus on, the last link to his world.

His gaze followed that path down, down, and _down_ , towards the great central mass.

Then his eyes widened. Before it joined that immense central shape, his path connected to another.

And that other path extended out somewhere below him.

Hawke’s heart leapt. Maybe – just maybe, if he could manage to fall onto _that_ path and survive – then he could find his way home.

He cried out with relief at the thought of it, coughing and shedding tears into the void as he tried to believe fully the idea that he _would_ see Anders again. All he needed was a little faith.

He could see the path below him. Clenching his fists, calling upon every scrap of magic and power in his blood, Hawke _willed_ himself towards that road. He focused on himself slowing down to a survivable velocity, and heading distinctly in _that direction_.

It looked like he was going to make it. The path below was becoming clearer, and about a third of its breadth was below him.

But he noticed something else – like some of the ones above, this road looked damaged. Great chunks of it were missing here and there, and several bits seemed to be unravelling and meandering off into the nothingness.

Not only that, but a long distance away – in between where Hawke would fall and where his original path intersected this one – what looked like several long, twisting cords of driftwood-like matter, gnarled and knobbly with embedded chunks of masonry, dangled from yet another damaged road higher up. They intersected the path below, piercing holes right through it and continuing on into the abyss. From within the path, around the wounds caused by the interjecting tendrils, a deep blue glow slowly pulsated.

Hawke had no idea what to make of any of this. All he could afford to focus on right now was survival, for the moment of impact was fast approaching.


	2. the Border World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke explores the strange interdimensional roadway he's found himself on. He discovers and takes advantage of a place of refuge.

Hawke didn’t remember the impact, nor the pain that followed. He survived it, though, and recovered relatively quickly thanks to one of his less visible mutations.

The long and short of it was that years ago, Hawke had voluntarily contracted a form of the darkspawn taint that gave him several physical boosts with none of the psychic drawbacks. Avernus, Eingana’s Grey Warden scientist-mage, had called it _somatic Blight_. Among its benefits were vastly increased stamina and rapid healing of internal injuries.

Hawke had a feeling that this preternatural resilience was all that had saved him from dying.

When he came to, he was groggy. He couldn’t know for sure how long he had been unconscious, but it felt like longer than a few minutes. As he remembered who and where he was, his heart jolted him back to full alertness with a rush of adrenaline.

His whole body hurt in a hit-by-a-charging-bronto kind of way, but the ache was manageable. He wasn’t stiff, so if he started moving now, he ought be able to stay active for a while yet.

Hawke stood up carefully and checked himself for injuries. He found plenty of bruises and scrapes, but nothing he couldn’t power through. His shortsword was still sheathed and strapped to his back, which was a relief.

As for _where_ he was, and where he needed to be....

Hawke looked up. The road from which he’d fallen was out of sight in the void. That didn’t necessarily mean it was out of reach.

He looked around at the Crossroads he’d landed on. It much resembled his own, being comprised of architectural fragments emerging from rocky, floating islands that were connected to each other by paths and bridges.

The light here was amber-tinged, sourceless, and omnipresent. It was enough to see by, but not much more than that. Its mood reminded Hawke of a sunset, or perhaps a sunrise on a smoky horizon.

The road around him was damaged, although the damage didn’t look recent. There were wide, shallow pits blasted into parts of the pathway. Here and there chunks of debris had been pushed into piles, anywhere that was convenient and off the walkable path. Unavoidable craters had been smoothed down into navigable depressions, while the intact portions were caked with ancient beaten-down dust.

Behind him, the top three steps of a staircase leading down were all that remained before a yawning chasm. The rest of the stairs had crumbled.

Briefly, Hawke peered over the edge. Through the amber haze far below, he faintly made out a long-settled jumble of debris.

At least the section where he’d landed was stable enough. It seemed odd that there was no apparent damage where he’d fallen: in the middle of a curb-lined pathway that led to the shattered stairs. In the other direction, it passed between two rocky outcroppings before reaching the blasted road ahead. Both areas were paved with a black substance that looked like rock from standing height, but up close had a strangely varied texture that felt almost spongey in places.

The few portals Hawke could see from his position looked very different from the eluvians he knew. There were three of them, all bolted to walls or rocks.

Unlike the eluvians, each of which was a unique work of art, these doorways were of identical, brutally functional design. All three were constructed from dull grey-black metal, perfectly oblong, and wholly unadorned. They looked big enough that Hawke could have stood comfortably within one beside The Iron Bull – or stood on his shoulders with headroom to spare.

None of the portals were active. Also unlike the eluvians, they had no surfaces at all, but were merely empty frames. Hawke could see the road through the nearest one.

Before he set out, Hawke took a moment to scan the cloudy void that surrounded the road, hoping for some clues as to where he was.

Scattered about at varying distances, he saw many obelisks of a consistent architectural style. They were narrow and poked out of the mist, like spears of (presumably) awesome height. All of them seemed to be inscribed with runic writing, although Hawke could only discern individual characters on the closest ones. He had never seen the language before.

Peering into the far distance, he also made out numerous isolated islands and another road that looked inaccessible from this one – or at least, from anywhere near where he was.

The whole vista was unnervingly lonely. It was clear, painfully so, just how far from home he was. The place felt alien and ancient... but somehow, not quite _abandoned_. Hawke couldn’t say for sure why, but he had a strong feeling that these roads were still in use, even if it was infrequent.

He was at a loss as to what kind of beings and environments he could expect to encounter this far from familiar territory. On a related note, he had no idea how long it would take him to climb whatever planar nexus this road was part of and return to the Crossroads he knew. Nor could he guess how long he could survive in this in-between place before he would need to venture through a portal in search of food and water.

All I want, Hawke thought, is to find my way back to Anders. Where we end up I don’t care, so long as we’re there together. But it would be nice to see my friends again, and to get back to the peace and quiet we’ve earned in Thedas.

Seeking guidance and comfort, Hawke closed his eyes and hummed an ancient, wordless tune from deep in his chest. If there were spirits or even gods in this place, maybe one of them would convey a message.

_Great Bear, if you can hear me: lend me your instincts. Guide my way home. And tell Anders I love him._

He set out, travelling for a while in the direction that felt right. He moved slowly and carefully at first, wary of more instability, but the ground he was on now was solid.

It wasn’t long before Hawke realized that the disharmonic sensation of the Crossroads he’d grown accustomed to over the years was totally absent here. On the contrary: despite his aches and bruises, he felt energized and alert. The feeling persisted, leading him to believe that this section of the Crossroads was attuned to humans the way the one he’d come from was attuned to elves.

It was encouraging to have a disadvantage unexpectedly become its opposite. Now he could focus on learning the terrain and picking up speed.

Soon he was bounding at a brisk jog down roads, across bridges, and up staircases. He jumped neatly up rockslides and over chasms. He scampered up a handful of particularly steep ascents on all fours.

A few hours into his journey, he began passing damaged sections of the road that had been overcome with sophisticated repairs. Here the damage seemed to be the result of natural wear and collapse as often as bombardment.

Numerous collapsed stairways had been cleared of debris and replaced by magical devices. The additions looked like long strips of shiny black metal with lines of blue light down the middle.

Hawke discovered that if you stood on any part of a metal line, its magic lifted you up to the continuation of the path. If you stepped off the drop going in the opposite direction, the enchantment would catch you and bring you down safely.

He also discovered, to his enjoyment, that the magic adapted its lift to his momentum. When he hit the metal strip at a run, he could jump and sail up the ascent without losing speed. As he hit the top and took the path running, he felt a palpable surge of forward velocity. He named the devices _boosters_ in his mind because of this, and very much came to prefer them over the traditional stairways they’d replaced.

After the fourth or fifth booster Hawke passed, he was running comfortably at or near the top speed he could manage. Most importantly, he felt both firmly in control of his speed and trajectory, and comfortable maintaining this pace for a long while yet.

He crossed multiple broken or destroyed bridges that had also been replaced by boosters. The bridge work-arounds were simpler, taking the form of glowing lines of blue light seemingly cut into the air above chasms. In such places, one could take a running jump, zoom across the gap while riding the magical lift, and get a boost to keep running on the other side. As with the stair bypasses, one could also simply walk up to the chasm and wait to be detected, whereupon one was gently ferried across.

Portals were increasingly common along his route. All of them were identical to the first few he’d seen. Most were bolted to walls, although a few stood upright and alone on flat sections. Their size made him wonder what kind of beings they were made with in mind.

The majority of the doorways he passed were inactive, but now and then he passed one that had been left open. As with the environment, the alienness of the portals disturbed him. Rather than the iridescent blue surface he was used to, active portals in this section of the Crossroads were filled with cloudy, prickly fields of grey light.

Hawke had no idea what to make of this magic. Looking into an open gate was hypnotic, but painful. Its texture changed constantly. The sight of it seemed to make it hard for both of his eyes to look in the same direction. He inevitably had to blink and look away – and then his whole upper face would briefly feel as though it had lost circulation, and was now painfully regaining blood flow.

Just being near the portal fields made his skin crawl and the back of his neck itch. The active gates seemed to produce a hissing, crackling noise that hovered just outside the range of hearing. Whenever he was near one, Hawke felt not only watched, but _touched_ and _listened to_ as well.

Despite how uncomfortable they made him, there was a part of Hawke that was curious, even eager, to step through one of those doorways and see where it led. But a much louder voice inside him warned of the extreme danger of such unknowns. Equally strong was his desire to get home _soon_ , with as few stops as possible.

So he did not venture through the gates. He would likely be forced to eventually, but now was not the time for it.

He ran on for several more hours. As his body raced, his mind – still partially detached and in shock – wandered slowly from thought to thought.

He was fortunate to have been wearing his lightweight boots that were custom-designed for him with running in mind. While he was barefoot, the shape of his toe claws limited him to a fast lope at best.

It was a nice change, too, that this environment was empowering his body rather than hampering it. He’d never have been able to make time like this in the familiar Crossroads. The main benefit was speed, as he already had a nearly endless well of stamina to call upon.

Hawke might have been a little past his prime, but he’d been well-fed and strong for many years. Even apart from the benefits of the Crossroads and his somatic Blight, his whole being was built around a solid core of endurance and strength, tempered by wisdom.

For now, all he could do was focus his attention on navigating the terrain. The exertion of travel would have to be distraction enough from his anxiety and longing for home.

It grated on him, though, that there were no environmental factors by which he could measure the passage of time. The light here never varied, and the surrounding void was sparse. The road’s architecture was somewhat repetitive, so he could at least count the identical bridges he’d passed, but they weren’t all the same distance apart, making it harder to be sure his count was accurate.

Everything around here was both eerie and monotonous about its eeriness. It made it even harder to forget that his loved ones were worlds away. Hawke was _apart_ from them, from Anders, on a level more profound than he had ever imagined possible. Even his physical trip into the Fade hadn’t felt so isolated as this – at least he’d had friends with him then.

He ought to have been at Skyhold. He ought to have been holding Anders’s hand right now, enjoying a meal and everyone’s company.

Instead he was here, alone, on an interplanar highway amid portals to alien worlds.

There came a point when, by Hawke’s estimation, about eight hours had passed since he would have been missed at Skyhold. If his instincts were right, it was now close to midnight in Thedas. In all the time he’d been running, the architecture of the road had never varied.

Reluctantly, Hawke began to think about searching for a safe place to sleep through one of the portals. He wanted to rest, think, and perhaps find food and water.

He itched to see something familiar, even if it was just a normal sky and a horizon. He kept hoping to come across any sort of sign that he was on the right track. At the very least, he would have settled for strong indications that the local world or worlds were a) survivable and b) habitable, at least some of the time.

After that, inevitably, came the decision to venture through the next open portal he saw. He would try to find one that felt right, or at least one that didn’t feel _wrong_.

Hawke wondered whether he could even trust his instincts in this place. After all – they’d been honed in and for the world he knew, no other.

All he could do was trust his own spirit and have faith in the Great Bear.

Over the course of the next thirty minutes, Hawke saw fourteen more gateways. Four of them were open. He left them all behind after deciding they weren’t the right ones.

Finally, he slowed down for a portal with a blue symbol painted on the wall above it. He didn’t recognize the glyph, but something about its shape made him want a closer look.

The portal was tucked into an alcove between two bridges. Hawke had passed this architectural feature hundreds of times today, but this was the first one he’d seen that had a portal in the central alcove.

He approached warily, but he had a good feeling about this one.

Out of habit he looked the doorway over for markings, hoping against hope to find a clue to its destination. There were none to be had. This portal was as featureless as the hundreds of others he’d passed, only being unusual in that it was open.

Its energy field was typical as well. Hawke discovered, not entirely happily, that he was growing accustomed to looking at the fields. He could gaze into this one without discomfort or disorientation, and the not-quite-noise it generated no longer bothered him as much.

There was nothing left to do but enter. Just in case, Hawke took some deep breaths, rolled his shoulders and neck, and flexed his fingers in preparation for the possibility of imminent combat.

He stepped through the portal...

...and entered a plane of cool, calming blue.

It was a quiet spot, very high up. Twilight veiled the world. There was nobody around.

Hawke relaxed and let out a relieved sigh.

The portal he’d emerged from stood in the middle of a depression in a rectangular stone platform. Steps led from the lowered area up to a walkway around the platform’s perimeter. Beyond the edge – where there was barely a lip, much less a railing – he saw only clouds.

Hawke headed for the nearest steps and climbed them. On the upper walkway, he became aware of a breeze: a cool, pleasant current that shifted the hair on his arms.

The extra height didn’t change his view very much. His surroundings were piercingly clear, and breathtaking. He did nothing for the next several minutes but gaze around in wonder.

The platform was evidently at the top of a narrow spire. It towered gods knew how high over a fluffy blanket of cloud from which it emerged far below. This cloud was a pure, almost luminescent pale grey, stretching in a flat layer all the way to the horizon and beyond.

Above this lower boundary, the sky was filled with rolling races of more cloud. All of them were moving in the same direction at considerable speed. Large masses of vapour both near and far from Hawke’s spire drifted past it, part of a seemingly infinite procession of fantastic shapes.

Scattered in the middle distance, sometimes becoming obscured by cloud drifts, Hawke saw dark rods emerging from the underlying layer. They formed solid lines of presence, holding still amid the ceaselessly changing cloudscape. He could only assume they were more spires like the one he was on.

At the zenith, a shadowed moon was visible. A ring of clear indigo sky surrounded it. The moon looked to be in near-total eclipse, although its limb was tinged blue instead of red like eclipses were in Thedas.

The entire scene, including all the clouds and spires, shared a similar blue-grey ambience. It was almost as though the whole world reflected the cool visage of the moon.

The upwelling of humility and awe Hawke felt at having found such a place brought tears to his eyes. It was rare that he had a chance to experience such marvellous sights. It had happened before, but always in the presence of life-threatening danger that tended to distract from the view.

There was no such danger here. Atop this spire, surrounded by nothing but air, he felt chillingly small and exposed – but at the same time, greatly comforted. Somehow, amid this stark beauty, it seemed a little more possible that he could find his way home.

He was also aware that he would never have encountered this vista if he hadn’t fallen off the path in the Crossroads. In a way, it made the ordeal worth it. He just wished Anders could have been here to share it with him.

Hawke wondered if anyone else from Thedas (ancient elves, perhaps?) had ever been out this far into the Crossroads. If they had, he wondered if they’d returned.

Silent minutes passed as Hawke wandered around the perimeter of the tower, watching cloud formations and working through his emotions. He kept back a metre or so from the edge without needing to think about it.

What was left after his feelings ran their course was pragmatism. He was pretty sure he knew what this place was, or at least what it was meant to be.

He finally turned his attention back to the platform’s lowered area, giving it a look to either side of the portal.

One half of the depression contained a sand pit and a series of empty racks attached to the floor. The sand looked like it had been raked recently.

On the other side of the portal was a large device like a horizontal, arc-shaped ribbon of pipes and ceramic, elevated by a sturdy pillar on either end. Several nearby drains and various attachments all over the device attested to its probably numerous functions.

Hawke searched, even moving up to peer carefully over the edge of each side of the tower, but he found no sign of any stairs, ladders, or passages leading down. Besides flying or falling, the only way to leave the spire was through the portal.

He went back to the doorway and examined it. What he found confirmed his hunch: there was a button on the side that turned the portal off.

The button was higher than his head, but he could reach it without stretching. Pressing it again reactivated the portal.

There had been no such control on the Crossroads side, which supported Hawke’s theory that this platform was intended as a safe resting place. No one else could get here while the door was closed, assuring anyone on the platform both privacy and safety.

He could sleep, and probably stay here for as long as he wanted – _if_ he wanted. But when he left, he would have to leave the door open behind him.

He wondered what would happen if someone closed the portal and then fell off the spire, or died some other way. This haven would then become permanently inaccessible from the Crossroads – unless there were caretakers to reopen the portal from this side.

For that matter, where even _was_ ‘this side’? It certainly wasn’t the Crossroads, but neither was it the Fade. Hawke had been to the dreamlands before – in his sleep, while possessed, and physically. There had been distinctive elements to those experiences that were lacking here.

Yes, this world was definitely a waking one. It just wasn’t the one where he lived.

If he was right about all he’d surmised, then the spire he was on (and probably the others he could see and who knew how many more) had been built here for this very purpose.

It was simple: since those who travelled by portal still had to move from one to another in the in-between place, those on long journeys needed places to stop and rest. Thus the architects of this place had adapted the nature of the Crossroads to create what amounted to interplanar roadside havens.

Contemplating the technological advancement or magical sophistication (or both) that would be necessary to raise needles in the clouds like this made Hawke uneasy. What kind of intent had to be acted upon, what kind of resources had to be harnessed, to build impossible structures like this?

He could be certain of precious little. He knew the portal-builders had to be at least on par with the ancient elves of Thedas, for their technology used the same principles as eluvians. Their structural engineering appeared to be quite beyond any living species or civilization of which Hawke was aware.

The other thing he knew was that their Crossroads was attuned to humans – or at least, to beings human enough that he’d been recognized as one. Beyond that, he could only speculate.

Curious though he was, none of it really mattered in the end. The portals and spire were here, and he was going to use them. Soon he would have to be on his way again, and leave this place behind.

It took Hawke some time to figure out how all the arc-shaped device’s attachments worked. There were no apparent switches or other controls, forcing him to use trial and error. He eventually determined that certain sections of the device were activated by the presence of his body.

There was a water fountain on a side of one of the large support pillars. It responded to anything near its spout by releasing a flow of cool water. If he stuck his hands under it, Hawke could wash them or catch some water to drink without getting the rest of his body wet.

He scrubbed his hands and claws clean of road dust as best he could. Then, after murmuring a brief gratitude to the builders of this place, he drank his fill.

The water tasted weirdly half-familiar, as though it was what he drank at home minus a few trace elements.

A pipe was attached to the base of the same pillar that held the fountain, leading to a tap and hose over a large covered drain nearby. After some inspection, Hawke surmised that this device served the function of waste disposal. Convenient _and_ hygienic, he mused.

The other end of the arc produced a line of dispersed water streams that he could stand under to bathe. They also activated when he stuck his arm under them, allowing him to gauge the temperature of each. They started out cold and grew noticeably warmer as he moved down the line towards the support pillar. At the far end, they were too hot to bear for very long.

The water that came out of these nozzles collected in a long, shallow depression in the floor underneath them. Its surface was coarse stone that resisted slipping on. Metal grates covered its regularly-spaced drains.

The idea of standing under very hot running water was peculiar to Hawke, but supposed he could see the appeal if it was just warm, rather than scalding.

There were other devices and attachments whose functions Hawke could not discern. For example, there was a large chute on the reverse side of pillar with the water fountain. It led directly down, but Hawke couldn’t see where it went and he didn’t really have anything he could spare to drop into it to see what happened.

He left it alone, along with a few hatches he couldn’t budge and three or four widgets he couldn’t make sense of. He felt extremely fortunate to have found this place at all; he was content to have worked out the gist, if not the particulars, of its technology.

Bathing sounded real nice right about now, so after turning the portal off, Hawke stripped nude. He left his sword, boots, and clothes, his sole possessions in the world at the moment, over by the sand pit.

He emptied his bladder into the convenient disposal, being careful as ever with his claws while he handled his dick.

Then he went and stood under the cool spray.

The colder end of the line of showers was closer to what he was used to, but it didn’t feel welcome at the moment. Hawke had never had anything like a hot shower before, and he was curious to see how it felt, so he made his way down the line.

He soon discovered that warm water flowing down onto his head and over the rest of his body felt _amazing_. It was incredibly relaxing.

After a while, he came to a halt under one of the hotter sprays. For a long time he simply stood there, mind empty of everything except the feeling of the water splashing down over him.

Eventually, almost in a trance, Hawke began to go through the motions of turning this way and that, scrubbing himself with his palms and the pads of his fingers. He carefully ran his fingers through his thick hair, soaking it thoroughly and combing it with his claws.

He would have appreciated some soap or a washcloth, but he’d found neither. He simply did his best to lift away the dried sweat, Crossroads grit, and the remnants of dust from his run in the Frostbacks that afternoon.

He stared down for a while, watching the last physical traces of his homeworld swirl around and vanish into an alien drain.

Long after his whole body was as clean as it was going to get, he continued to stand there, watching the water circle.

The wet nakedness that came after felt cold.

Hawke went to the upper walkway and stood in the breeze. The airflow was constant and soft, never sharp, but he shivered all the same.

He spent some more time looking out at the clouds.

He thought about his clothes. They weren’t extremely dirty, but he’d been running and climbing in them all day, first in the Frostbacks and then the Crossroads. They could use a rinse, at least. Who knew when he’d get the chance again?

He took his clothes to the water fountain and gave them just that – a rinse. He could have scrubbed them with sand if he’d been really determined, but none of the doodads on this tower looked like they were usable as a washboard.

Fortunately, the racks near the sand pit proved ideal for hanging his clothes up to dry. They could be ratcheted up in height so that the clothes draped over them were exposed to the breeze. Hawke hung up his now slightly-less-sweat-stained short-sleeved shirt, his undershirt, running shorts, magic jockstrap, and socks.

Once he’d air-dried himself on the upper walkway a bit more, Hawke put his jockstrap back on. Despite having been repeatedly drenched and wrung out just minutes ago, it was now completely dry – but then, it was magic. The rest of his clothes would need more time.

Nearly naked, he continued to wander slowly around the walkway, watching the clouds.

It occurred to him that the oblong shape of the tower’s cross-section was of similar proportions to the portal. Curious, he paced out the platform’s dimensions. Estimating the portal’s height by eye, the aspect ratios of the two were a very close if not exact match.

If this was significant, he had no idea how.

He peered out at the lines he thought were other spires for a while. Once he thought he saw a light on top of one of them, but it didn’t reappear.

He spent many more minutes looking up at the moon. It was larger than either of the two moons of Thedas. The totality of its eclipse had not visibly passed since he’d arrived here.

Finally, yawning, Hawke went and settled himself down in the sand pit. He rested his head on his boots and left his sword in its sheath on the stone nearby.

He’d slept in far less comfortable places over the years. He was grateful to the builders who, despite clearly leaning hard into a functional/minimalist approach, had thought to include sand. It was nice to have something other than solid rock to sleep on.

Not that sleep came easily – or at all, for quite some time. He closed his eyes and tried, but his mind wasn’t done.

There was, at last, nothing else but the faint sound of the breeze to distract him from his grief.

Hawke was furiously homesick. Once he’d hated Kirkwall, but he had now lived there off and on for over twenty years. He loved his mansion, and he hadn’t even minded the city itself for a long time.

He missed his bedroom, the fireplace, the smell of clean sheets. He missed Bodahn’s cooking. He missed hearing the click of Reaver’s paws or the meow of a cat from somewhere else in the house.

He missed Skyhold, too: that comfortable castle out in the middle of nowhere, quiet and isolated and beautiful. He’d never tired of exploring the endless paths and valleys that honeycombed the surrounding landscape. In times of peace, Hawke had relished every chance he’d had to visit Skyhold. It might have been a lonely place, but he’d always had friends there.

He’d been looking forward to this visit, too. At least he’d had one excellent afternoon – but there had been barely any time at all with Anders.

Hawke’s stomach had tied itself in knots worrying about the people he’d left behind. He could only imagine what they were going through right now, what they must be thinking by this point. As far as anyone back there would know, he’d stepped into the eluvian at Skyhold and vanished. The servants at his estate would attest that he hadn’t made it to Kirkwall – if they could be contacted.

His loved ones would have certainly gone looking for him, but Hawke doubted the eluvian route between Skyhold and Kirkwall was even still passable. For all he knew, the entire Crossroads might have been destroyed. The entire realm had supposedly been collapsing for a long time, and the dimensional devastation brought by the war with Solas hadn’t helped.

With a surge of hope, Hawke remembered Rawiya, the girl with the ash tree. She’d said that the Crossroads were ‘in a strange mood today’. Maybe she knew, or could deduce, what had happened to him. She might be able to give Anders and the others hope that he was still alive.

Hawke missed them all terribly, even more so than his familiar places. He was closest to Anders and Varric, but there were many others who were dear to him. He especially missed Isabela, Aveline, Merrill, and Fenris. He’d been looking forward to catching up with all of them.

Not to mention Eingana, Saadeh, and all of _their_ old friends and allies – many of whom Hawke had worked with on occasion and come to like.

And there was Reaver. Hawke’s Mabari companion was old, and long-settled in his routines. Mabari lived for a long time, but Reaver was getting right up there. He was as seasoned a warrior as Hawke was himself, and he had almost as many scars on both his body and soul.

Hawke had always expected to outlive his faithful friend. What would Reaver do if his master never made it back? Anders and Varric would do their best to do right by the dog, but Reaver wouldn’t cope well if Hawke simply vanished one day without even leaving a body behind to mourn.

At some point in the past few minutes, Hawke had started crying without allowing himself to make a sound. Now, pointlessly, his throat was tight, his eyes were full of tears, and his nose was well on its way to being totally stuffed up.

Hawke heaved a great sigh and opened his eyes. He rolled over and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He let the tears fall.

He knelt and tried to sniffle a few times, but it was useless. His nasal passages were completely blocked.

This annoyed him. Hawke got up and went over to the other side of the portal, where he stood over the drain below the water fountain. He blew snot out of his nose as hard as he could.

After some effort, he managed to shift enough mucus out of his head to be able to breathe through his nose. He carefully wiped the snot off his face with the heels of his thumbs, then washed his hands and face.

He went back to the sand pit and forced himself to sit with the anxiety and the fear and the longing, trying to feel it _all_ so that it would just be _felt_ and then maybe... go away.

He wished this _was_ a dream world, so he could close his eyes and wake up back at Skyhold. He wished he could hold Anders’s hands again, and laugh at Isabela’s jokes, and enjoy Varric’s stories. He wanted to give Reaver the hug and belly rub that he’d given his dog every night for thirty years.

He just wanted to be _around_ them all, to be able to see and hear them and know they were okay. He wanted to know they were still safe. Even after years of peace, even knowing they were all probably physically fine, his urge to protect his family and friends was hard sit with unsatisfied.

As beautiful as this place was, Hawke would gladly have forgotten it existed if it meant he would see their faces again.

Would he ever get that chance? Would he ever again be able to hold and kiss the man he loved, or throw sticks for his dog to fetch, or share drinks with his adoptive misfit family?

It would be wholly up to him to make that happen. Him and, perhaps, Sigfrost.

Over the years since escaping possession by a horror, Hawke had chosen to develop a rapport with the Great Bear spirit of the Avvar traditions. He’d long ago turned away from the genocidal Chantry and its imperialist beliefs, although he didn’t begrudge Anders his continued faith in Andraste. Now Hawke meditated often, sharing with Sigfrost his own faith in himself and his loved ones.

The Great Bear was said to guard wisdom, challenging those who sought it. Hawke knew now that he could trust his instincts in this place – they had guided him to this refuge, after all. Yet he would need to be ever warier as he proceeded. There was no telling what dangers he would face on the road ahead... and the quest for wisdom had claimed many lives.

Lying flat on his back, no longer crying, Hawke looked up at the moon.

The silence of this place seemed to roar at him.

Eventually his eyes drifted closed, and for a few hours he slept in dreamless peace.


End file.
